To Be or Not To Be...is That The Question?

[reporting from Haiti]

Everyone around us judges us by what we do and how we think, most of the time getting a completely wrong idea about who we truly are. I believe a proverb that explains this is “Never judge a book by a cover”. Yet, sadly, we all do it, including me, I hate to admit. A problem I have is, and I judge people about is I tend to see people for who they are outside. Take my friend Ian for example: when I first met him in physics class, he had blue hair, with a spongebob squarepants book bag, and Capri look-alike pants. I mean, honestly, COME ON!!!! So naturally, I thought this guy’s going to be the next Timothy McVeigh or something completely out of the mainstream. But then, our professor sat us next to each other for the second cycle of the school year. At first, I was a little scared, thinking God knows what this kid might do to me. But then, as the days go by, I got to know him as he got to know me. We became good friends, to claim first prize in the physics bridge building competition. And all this happened because I gave him a chance as he did me, to know him, and see him for who he truly was and still is.
Now why is it so hard for us to just try and not perceive things as they seem? If people saw half of my friends, they’d think I’m crazy, as they seem they are. But they are in the top colleges in the country, studying physics, chemical engineering, law, nanotechnology, criminal psychology and so much more. Now if you told them this, do you honestly think they would believe you? Because of the world we live in, our society forces us to see everything in a completely different light…a terrible one. When we look down a dark tunnel, we do see light at the end of it, but it’s not an exit from the darkness. It’s an oncoming train, about to hurt us and cause us so much pain and sorrow. Thinking about it, it’s not our fault that we think about it. I mean, my mother doesn’t approve of half my friends. And it’s not that she’s close-minded of any sort. She’s just worried and again, has every right to be.
So the main question remains, do we know ourselves who we truly are? Who are we living for? For others? Do we have to change who we are to fit into an ever-changing society that doesn’t even recognize its own identity? We change our behavior so much, our lifestyle, our friends, that at some point that we reach, we don’t even recognize ourselves. We start doing things that are indignant of where we were raised. And who is to blame for that? Not just the society that we were raised in, but the main culprit remains nobody else but us. I witness this in my own family as one of my cousins constantly detaches himself from the family, to a point where his friends know him better than his own mother. Where this is a problem, I know these friends and they do not mean well. They are still young, immature and have absolutely no idea what the meaning of life is. Of course, none of us really do, but others who are older and are more experienced have a better idea than 14-year-olds do. His excuse is that if his family knows him better than his friends, they will use his weaknesses against him. He makes his own family the enemy. He completely misses how his own family will use those weakness “against him” for his own good, while he will get hurt, if not harshly, if those friends use those weaknesses against him. It would be a contradiction for me to just turn down any possibility that his friends may mean well. But what I am arguing is that at such a young age, his friends cannot possibly know better than his own family, especially one like the one I was raised in, as he was.
What we need to do is live for ourselves and not for others, do what pleases us, and not what pleases others, avoid what makes us cry, and not do it because it will make this person happy. What we also need to think is that the stranger that can become a potential friend may be following the same dogma. Sure, we live in a crazy world today…but is it wrong to be an optimist? Is it wrong to see the goodness in others? I believe in it…and so far I haven’t been wrong. Others may not have been as lucky as I have, but at least I gave it a chance, which is something others refuse to even ponder the thought of.

This blog is written in dedication to my little cousin Daniel, in hopes for light at the end of the tunnel and not an oncoming train.